Photo credit: Mickey Z.
Mickey Z. -- World News Trust
Feb. 5, 2015
“Without community, there is no liberation. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.”
- Audre Lorde
What motivates any human -- especially one living in relative privilege -- to embrace the unpopular and challenging path of activism? Of course, there are many particular/specific reasons but I’ll posit that the underlying emotion is most often anger.
Rage, vexation, displeasure, irritation, indignation, fury, wrath, ire, outrage -- call it what you wish but those first activist steps usually happen because something really pissed you off. It might be oppression you personally experience; it might come from bearing witness to the suffering of others (of any species); or maybe your anger arises in defense of the entire ecosystem.
The next step usually involves finding like-minded souls…
Collective rage is not only an excellent motivator. As anyone who’s ever stood amongst an angry crowd and joined in the calls for justice can tell you, it’s also a powerful uniter… at first.
“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”
- Ernesto Guevara
Unfortunately, we often have to add a coda to Che’s quote above: “at least for now.” The trickiest part of activism usually occurs when progress and results are hard or almost impossible to discern. The atrocities, the micro-aggressions, the injustices, the minute-to-minute inequalities persist… despite our work and our righteous outrage.
The next phase is sadly predictable. All that activist fury often gets re-directed: at one another. Back-biting, resentment, jealousy, and betrayal splinter groups and sometimes entire movements. Next comes the need to choose a scapegoat, someone to blame for both our ineffectiveness and our schism.
Meanwhile, the powers-that-be get richer and more powerful, our shared landbase becomes increasingly threatened, and mainstream humans sit back and enjoy the spectacle of activist self-destruction.
“Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.”
- bell hooks
We must ask ourselves: Has my activism been controlled by ego and fear or guided by community, solidarity, intersectionality, collective liberation, and non-stop communication?
Successful, sustainable, inclusive activism involves 24/7 diligence to not take the easy paths of gossip, disrespect, exclusion, and betrayal. To have any chance of creating change, we must work in tight, diligent solidarity. Perhaps most important of all, we must always support our allies and ensure that no one in our circle is marginalized and that everyone understands the obligations of collective efforts.
Such unity and trust among activists can and will serve as a bulwark against division -- regardless of its source. Once we have reached that point and found the right patience-to-urgency ratio, another world is truly possible -- even if we do not personally reap the rewards.
“If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question.”
- I.F. Stone
#shifthappens
Mickey Z. is the author of 12 books, most recentlyOccupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on the Web here. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here.
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Buy these books by Mickey Z. here:
Occupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism A Q&A guide to becoming an activist by a leader in the Occupy movement in New York City. Full of insights into what it takes to be an activist, accompanied by quirky toons by Richard Cole, Mickey Z. advocates saving our world from the tyranny of global environmental disaster, animal abuses, war profiteering and the abuses of government against its citizens. Occupy this Book is a daily reminder of how to stay in the movement and to stay in top shape as an activist. Buy Now: | A Darker Shade of Green J.T. is a sensitive but privileged 12-year-old who s runaway to New York City. He soon comes under the guidance of Allie Romano, a homeless man who stays afloat by challenging people to chess and scamming book clubs for free books to sell. Allie quickly becomes a teacher and mentor for J.T. setting off a chain of events that just might explain how an American chess champion could wind up wanted by the FBI for eco-terrorism. Told in a documentary style, this manifesto/expose weaves internet posts, diary entries, quotes and interviews to tell stories within stories. The reader, much like J.T., has a lot to learn. Award winning author Mickey Z. brings an unrelenting compassion to the troubles of our modern world, pointing us in one clear direction: It s time to embrace a darker shade of green. Buy Now: | Dear Vito James Hemming is a personal trainer who, in his spare time, enters air guitar contests mimicking Vito Bratta of the old hair metal band, White Lion. He meets the waif-like Indigo at the gym and recruits her into a plot to make himself famous while resurrecting Vito's legend. The tale unfolds through a pasticcio of flashbacks, diary entries, letters to Vito, and related vignettes that suddenly segue off to introduce back-stories, underlying themes, and other unexpected intersections. It's funny, quirky, perverted, and guaranteed to provoke a response. Buy Now: |
Self Defense for Radicals Radicals, feminists, environmentalists, activists for animal rights, human rights, civil rights--there are plenty of rebels and dissidents putting their safety on the line for what they believe in. Conversely, there's never been a shortage of reactionaries seeking to repress such vision and passion, often turning peaceful demonstrations into violent clashes in the process. This guide gets readers off and running in the right direction. From eye gouges to groin punches, they'll find a powerful collection of tactics which they can use to fight back. Buy Now: | No Innocent Bystanders: Riding Shotgun in the Land of Denial No Innocent Bystanders is a manifesto in fractals. Transcending labels and political parties, it gets to the heart of our planet's rapid decline using a blend of facts, humor, vignettes, and relevant quotes and lists. On the liner notes for The Freewheelin Bob Dylan album, it s stated that the song A Hard Rain s A-Gonna Fall was written during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. A desperate kind of song, Dylan called it. Every line in it is actually the start of a whole song, he explained. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn t have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one. No Innocent Bystanders has been created in that spirit. Buy Now: | CPR for Dummies The world is creeping towards destruction--no, not theoretically--it's really happening. In these last hours will humanity come together to correct their collective wrongs? Or will there be rampant beatings and kinky sex? A group of strangers are brought together by synchronicity to answer the age-old question: you lookin' at me, punk? The answer entails the comeuppance of the rich, police brutality, aerobic instruction by the Messiah, sexual slavery, and mutating genes.(Is this sounding good? I hope so. It's not easy writing these. I'm just a corporate monkey trying to snag your hard-earned dollars but don't let that get in the way of buying this book. Did I mention SEX yet?)Author Mickey Z's experimental tour-de-force is a funny, challenging deconstruction of the concept of the "novel" as well as life in the United States of America. Buy Now: |
50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism As new book. In this invaluable reference guide, you'll find 50 reasons to be a proud, progressive patriot, including: Thomas Paine fueling the revolutionary fire with common sense. Emma Goldman spreading anarchy in the USA; Eugene Debs running for president from his prison cell. etc. Buy Now: | A Gigantic Mistake Articles & Essays for Your Intellectual Self-Defense. Includes an anti-introduction by Howard Zinn. Buy Now: | The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda An essential guide to finding the truth hidden behind the lies. Buy Now: |
The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet Looking back on their lives, people often ask themselves "Where did the years go?" "The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet provides a wide ranges of provocative answers to that question. Edited in the style of a documentary, "The Murdering of My Years is a compendium of stories by activists and artists about how they manage to get by in America. They talk about the jobs they've had (as cabbies, organizers, waitresses, clerks, drivers taking scabs to secret scab trainings, telemarketers, etc.), how they were initially politicized, the nature of their art, and how they feel about working (or resistance to working) in a political context. The stories range from the absurd to the heartbreaking, from the exciting and strange to the depressingly banal. The book examines the pain, disillusionment, and fundamental hopelessness that afflict many workers. It also tells stories or triumph, joy, and subversion in the workplace. Buy Now: | Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of the "Good War" Saving Private Power questions the ultra-patriotic assumptions we have been taught since birth. The U.S. did not enter WWII to end the Holocaust, to make the world a safer place, or to stop fascism. The opposite is true. The U.S. business class traded with Hitler and Mussolini up to and even during the war. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh's public Hitlerphilia were symbolic of big business's admiration for Hitler's anticommunism. Using techniques gleaned from modern advertising, the U.S. Office of War Information injected anti-Japanese bloodlust and hysteria into the population. When the U.S. killed 672,000 Japanese through indiscriminate bombing, even Secretary of War Henry Stimson wondered why "there has never been a protest over...such extraordinarily heavy loss of life. There is something wrong with a country where no one questions that". Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation are cashing in on the revived interest in World War II. But time's up for the trafficers of cheap nostalgia. The media elite have sold us the myth about the U.S.'s noble role in the "Good War" for too long and the facade is beginning to crack. The recent release of John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope is only the beginning. Saving Private Power digs deeper, to find the truth about the this war and the world it left in its wake. Buy Now: | |